Jands  Vista lighting consoles played a major role on the latest Australian tour by Sir Cliff Richard OBE early this year.
 
Sir Cliff Richard OBE returned to Australia this year with his hit-packed Still Reelin’ and A-Rockin’ tour. He was accompanied by his long-time lighting designer Derek Jones who was touring with an impressive rig that held close to 90 moving lights.
 
A champion of Jands Vista consoles for many years, Derek came on tour with his own Vista S3 and Vista M1, part of a larger family of Vista consoles owned by him.

Derek prefers Jands’ consoles because they are easy to operate and easy to programme. He also appreciates the support he receives from Jands as they listen to the customer’s ideas and feedback, and come up with real solutions.

Derek also favours the 'mix and match' ability that owning a few Vista consoles facilitates, as well as their portability. He describes the console’s surface as ‘flexible, small and highly portable’. For a recent job he finished for a TV station, he used just an S1, which he could pop in his bag along with a laptop. The larger S3 has been packaged into a roadcase so it weighs less than 32 kilograms and can be checked in at an airport.

Features of the Vista that impress Derek include snapshots, which makes playing back a show simple and also the effects engine. He trusts the Vista’s reliability with the console never having let him down yet despite being taken all around the world.

Derek is running the current release of Vista v2 software, which he describes as brilliant.